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After starting the season 15-8 and going 30-20 through the first two months, the Yankees have played sub-.500 baseball since. Their young studs have slowed their production as Aaron Judge has gone from hitting .327 May 30 to .290 entering Wednesday's game.

Gary Sanchez has been so bad defensively his manager is threatening to give Austin Romine more starts behind the plate, and Luis Severino is coming off of a start in which he gave up 10 runs (eight earned) in less than five innings of work.

The Yankees are not playing as well as they did early in the year and Steinbrenner has noticed, but he also said the additions the team made at the trade deadline should help their playoff chances down the stretch.

"It was a great first two and a half months [of the season]," he said. "It's been a tough last two months for the most part. But I think they're coming out of it and the pitching additions we made at the deadline are already helping, and we're going to have a strong last five, six weeks."

The addition of Sonny Gray has paid off while Jaime Garcia has given them some much needed depth to their rotation especially with the loss of Michael Pineda (Tommy John surgery).

Entering Wednesday, the Yankees are 63-55 and 4 1/2 games out of first place in the AL East. They lead the wild-card race by 2 1/2 games over the Angels and three games over the Royals.